"Take care, Fry, take care! For, as they say in my country, the
master may send you to the seesaw!" And Frycollin gulped down his
sobs as he gulped down the meat which, in double doses, he was
hastily swallowing.

Meanwhile Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, who were not men to waste
time in wrangling when nothing could come of it, agreed upon doing
something. It was evident that escape was not to be thought of. But
if it was impossible for them to again set foot on the terrestrial
globe, could they not make known to its inhabitants what had become
of them since their disappearance, and tell them by whom they had
been carried off, and provoke--how was not very clear--some
audacious attempt on the part of their friends to rescue them from
Robur?

Communicate? But how? Should they follow the example of sailors in
distress and enclose in a bottle a document giving the place of
shipwreck and throw it into the sea? But here the sea was the
atmosphere. The bottle would not swim. And if it did not fall on
somebody and crack his skull it might never be found.

The colleagues were about to sacrifice one of the bottles on board
when an idea occurred to Uncle Prudent. He took snuff, as we know,
and we may pardon this fault in an American, who might do worse. And
as a snuff-taker he possessed a snuff-box, which was now empty. This
box was made of aluminum. If it was thrown overboard any honest
citizen that found it would pick it up, and, being an honest citizen,
he would take it to the police-office, and there they would open it
and discover from the document what had become of the two victims of
Robur the Conqueror!

And this is what was done. The note was short, but it told all, and
it gave the address of the Weldon Institute, with a request that it
might he forwarded. Then Uncle Prudent folded up the note, shut it in
the box, bound the box round with a piece of worsted so as to keep it
from opening it as it fell. And then all that had to be done was to
wait for a favorable opportunity.

During this marvelous flight over Europe it was not an easy thing to
leave the cabin and creep along the deck at the risk of being
suddenly and secretly blown away, and it would not do for the
snuff-box to fall into the sea or a gulf or a lake or a watercourse,
for it would then perhaps be lost. At the same time it was not
impossible that the colleagues might in this way get into
communication with the habitable globe.

It was then growing daylight, and it seemed as though it would be
better to wait for the night and take advantage of a slackening speed
or a halt to go out on deck and drop the precious snuff-box into some
town.

When all these points had been thought over and settled, the
prisoners, found they could not put their plan into execution--on
that day, at all events--for the "Albatross," after leaving Gousta,
had kept her southerly course, which took her over the North Sea,
much to the consternation of the thousands of coasting craft engaged
in the English, Dutch, French, and Belgian trade. Unless the
snuff-box fell on the deck of one of these vessels there was every
chance of its going to the bottom of the sea, and Uncle Prudent and
Phil Evans were obliged to wait for a better opportunity. And, as we
shall immediately see, an excellent chance was soon to be offered
them.

At ten o'clock that evening the "Albatross" reached the French coast
near Dunkirk. The night was rather dark. For a moment they could see
the lighthouse at Grisnez cross its electric beam with the lights
from Dover on the other side of the strait. Then the "Albatross" flew
over the French territory at a mean height of three thousand feet.

There was no diminution in her speed. She shot like a rocket over the
towns and villages so numerous in northern France. She was flying
straight on to Paris, and after Dunkirk came Doullens, Amiens, Creil,
Saint Denis.